S. Asia monsoon death toll tops 370

At least 5.5 million driven from Indian state

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NEW DELHI — Twenty-five people drowned when a homemade boat capsized in a rain-swollen Indian river on Thursday, and another 10 died in their homes, raising the death toll from South Asian flooding to 374.

The toll in South Asia — Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and India — included 13 deaths newly reported in Bangladesh.

Elsewhere, five deaths were confirmed in northern Japan on Thursday, raising the number killed from heavy rains there to 11.

The annual South Asia flooding, which is fed by melting snow and torrential rains, has left millions in dire need, as waters have washed away homes, roads, crops and telephone lines.

In India, where 232 have died since mid-June, a boat carrying 50 people flipped and sank Thursday in the Bagmati River in eastern India, where monsoon rains have wreaked havoc for weeks.

Fifteen passengers swam to shore safely, while 10 were rescued, said Bipin Kumar, a local administrator. He said rescue workers were trying to pull bodies from the river; 10 had been recovered so far. The accident occurred near Rampur Hari, 560 miles east of New Delhi.

In Gauhati, capital of India’s northeastern Assam state, 10 people died when heavy rain caved in hilltop houses in four neighborhoods, District Magistrate Absar Hazarika said.

At least 5.5 million people have been driven from their homes or marooned across Assam the past 10 days, said state Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. He said 3,000 villages were under water.

In Japan, 17 inches of rain have fallen since Monday in the Niigata state, and 5,000 people were in temporary housing, officials said. Two of the five dead found Thursday were from Sanjo. Two people remained missing.

The Jamuna River burst its banks in the Borga district and surged through villages in Bangladesh on Wednesday, drowning sleeping residents. The Ittefaq newspaper reported the breach left at least 100 people missing and damaged about 3,000 mud-and-straw houses.

“The flood waters came roaring into our house and we had little time to flee,” Parveen Aktar, a woman in Dhunat who lost two young children, was quoted as saying by Dhaka’s Daily Star newspaper. “I held them tight, but they were swept away.”

The floods have engulfed 25 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts, leaving nearly 5 million people stranded and 68 dead since late last month, officials said. Sixty-nine deaths occurred in Nepal; five in Pakistan.